Epilogue

There was a time when it all began to seem like some bizarre dream. That was after I’d been back home for several months, and was back to coaxing the spunk from my balls by hand again. I saw Emma every now and then, and she always waved and blew me a kiss. Once, Ashley was with her. When she saw me she ran across the yard and kissed me on the cheek, saying, “I still love you.” But then she ran back to her friend. I would find out years later that the musketeers had formed a new pact. They couldn’t have me until Caitlin could have me again.

Oddly, Hannah and I maintained the same kind of brother/sister relationship we’d had for the previous ten years. She called occasionally and chatted about this and that. Granted, now, during those conversations, when she said, “I miss you,” it had a different meaning than it had in the past, but we didn’t have phone sex or anything like that. I called her too, on her Birthday, and on Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s day was the only day we actually talked about missing sleeping together. I had sent her a dozen roses, and when I called to make sure she got them, she said, “If you were here, you’d get so very lucky.”

But we didn’t run away together to live happily ever after, or any of that stuff. Life went on, and we were thankful for what happiness we had had.

Or at least that’s how I looked at it.

It turns out that the women were making plans. They just didn’t keep me abreast of them.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain about that. For all I know they made Plan A, which fell through, and then Plan B, which also didn’t work out. It’s possible that they were all the way up to Plan R before I was made aware I had a role to play in it.

Anyway, how I did find out that I had a role more involved than being just a fondly remembered lover, was when Hannah called me one night and opened the conversation with, “I need the services of a good architect. You know any?”

“They don’t have architects in California?” I asked, mildly amused.

“They do, but they’re worthless, since the building I want designed will be built in Oklahoma.”

“Really!”

“Honest to Pete.”

“What’s going on?”

“I finally decided to use my doctorate for something other than teaching,” she said.

“Tell me about it.”

“There’s nothing much to tell. Caitlin got accepted at the University of Oklahoma at Norman, and I got a job at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. So we’re moving to Oklahoma after she graduates. For some strange reason she wants to live with her mother while she goes to college, and I’ve always wanted to live in a house I had something to do with designing. So I need an architect to turn what I tell him I want into all those funny lines on the blueprints.”

I was stunned. I’d had no clue, no hint whatsoever, that any of this was going on. And they must have known this for the last eight or ten phone calls. They just kept me in the dark.

“Bob?”

I realized I was standing there with my mouth hanging open.

“Wow,” I said.

“Isn’t it wonderful? Maybe we’ll get to see you more often.”

“You think?” I was aghast. Her whole demeanor was just blowing me away. Then the excitement of the possibilities hit my stomach and I almost bent over. “You’ll probably be hard pressed to keep me away,” I said.

“Oh, I don’t think that would be such a burden,” she said. “How about it? Want to design my new house?”

“Hell yes, I do,” I said. “Is this for real?”

“I’m flying in to OKC next week to inspect several parcels of land,” she said. “Once I buy something, I’m going to want to get going very quickly. I report to my new job in August.”

“That’s plenty of time,” I said. “It’s only November now, and I can have a set of preliminary drawings done up for you in a couple of weeks. Why don’t I meet you in OKC and look at the property with you. If you decide now, I’ll already know what the geology looks like, and can incorporate that into the design. Plus you can tell me what you have in mind. I could have something ready for you by February at the latest.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll email you with my itinerary.”

And, just like that, the conversation was over. We didn’t talk about anything else. It was very businesslike. I sat there, amazed that, once again, the Anderson women had rocked my world. Oklahoma City. Norman. Both were just a forty-five minute drive from Chickasha, where I lived.

Suddenly, the world was a brighter place.

That week went by fast. Her email told me when she’d fly in to Will Rogers, and I emailed her back that I’d be her transportation while in Oklahoma. Her itinerary had her coming in on a Tuesday, and leaving on Thursday, which gave me hope that I’d manage to convince her to stay at my house for the two nights she’d be here. And, if she needed to stay in a hotel to make her schedule work, then maybe I could convince her to let me stay with her.

I knew the properties she was going to look at were in the Seminole area, and since I’d already done some work in that part of the state I knew what to expect in terms of what depth the ground water was, and what type of geology there would be. Depending on her budget, I had some ideas that might be useful. Installing a ground source heating and cooling system, for example. If she had geothermal, and solar panels on the roof, she could be off the grid if necessary and perhaps even sell power back to the electric company. If nothing else, her electric bill would be close to zero each month. And there were other things she could do that would make the property more valuable, both to live in and later sell.

So I was excited as I stood at the luggage carousel that was listed for her flight. I knew the flight had landed, because I’d sat where I could see one of the electric boards that announced such things.

I saw her head first. Her hair was swept back in a pony tail, and the strong bones of her face made her easy to recognize, even from far away. She was walking with that stride that suggests she’s got important business to get to. As she got closer, my eyes appreciated the dress she had chosen to wear. It was forest green, her favorite color, and it was made of rayon or whatever material it is that clings to every subtle change in the shape of the body.

Such as her breasts. That dress put her breasts on display. Even from where I was, still a hundred feet away, I could see those breasts bouncing gently, and the men around her turning their heads, some briefly, some for longer periods, as they appreciated her too.

She saw me and smiled and waved. She was walking straight toward me, which is why I didn’t see another feature that dress was advertising, prominently. I did notice there was something amiss with her waistline, but I was too busy drinking in her face and chest to be bothered with trying to figure that out.

In fact, it wasn’t until she hugged me that I realized there was something between us inhibiting the hug.

I pushed her away with my hands on her shoulders, and looked down.

Now I could see what that dress was advertising.

She was clearly pregnant.

And, while I wasn’t an expert in these matters, I was pretty sure she’d been pregnant for at least two or three months.

“Surprise,” she said, softly.

I blinked. I swallowed. I turned my head to look for something to sit down on before I collapsed because my knees felt like jelly.

“When did this happen?” I asked, weakly.

“I think you know when this happened,” she said. “You’d better know when this happened.”

“But you didn’t tell me.”

“What could you have done about it if I had?”

I stared at the bulge that was my first child. Something began to expand inside of me that I was pretty sure would fill me up to overflowing and might cause me to burst into pieces.

“I could have celebrated!“ I said.

“So ... this is a celebration?” She moved her hands to smooth over the bulge.

“You bet your sweet ass it is!” I exclaimed. Several people looked our way. I’d said “ass” pretty loudly.

“I’m glad,” she said. “I have to admit I was a little worried.”

“Worried? About what?” My voice was still much too loud, and she pushed me backwards towards a wall, farther away from the carousel.

“I was a worried that all that stuff you told me while we were making this baby was just role playing.”

“Stuff?” My voice rose. “That wasn’t stuff. That was me, pouring my heart out to you!” My voice rose even more.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Caitlin was right. She yelled at me for not telling you, but I was too scared.”

“Caitlin.” My voice got soft very suddenly. I looked to both sides of us, as if I thought someone might be trying to eavesdrop. They hadn’t had to try to eavesdrop prior to this, because I was yelling most of the time. “Is she ... ?”

“Pregnant?” Hannah’s voice was dry. “No, Bob. Half satyr that you are, you did not knock up both of the Anderson girls in the space of two weeks. Geesh, Bob. Give me a break, here.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just so ... surprised.”

“And I’m surprised that you’re surprised. You sure tried hard enough to do this. I thought you’d call me and ask if I’d had a period or not, but you never did. And then I missed my second one, and Caitlin said I should tell you, but I wanted to wait until the lab test was done. Then I was afraid you’d be unhappy. Caitlin says I’m a big chicken.”

“Tastes like chicken,” I said. It just popped out.

“What?”

“Nothing. Sorry. I want to eat you up right now. You look so beautiful ... and that’s my baby ... our baby. I’m not unhappy. Are you surprised? Of course you’re surprised. You already said you were afraid I’d be unhappy. But I’m not. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy in my whole life. I’m babbling, aren’t I?”

“Yes.” She was grinning, and even though there was no outward sign of it, I could sense her relaxing.

I reached for her again, and pulled her against me.

“I love you. Do you love me?”

She giggled. “That sounds like a song I heard one time, about a note that was passed in class.”

“You like country music?” I gaped.

“I like all kinds of music,” she said. “Besides, you recognized it, so that means you listen to it too.”

“Never mind that,” I said. “That’s our baby,” I said, pushing against her bump just enough that she could tell I was doing it. I didn’t want to hurt the baby. “And I love you, and right now I’m kind of desperate to hear you tell me you love me too.”

“I do,” she whispered against my lips. “The world does not approve.”

“Fuck the world,” I whispered back.

“No, don’t do that,” she said.

She pressed back and kissed me gently.

“You fucked me ... and look what happened.”

We collected her luggage, and left. That was good, because it was all I could do to keep myself from standing behind her and reaching around with both hands to cup her bulge. Just as incest is frowned on, fondling a pregnant woman’s belly in public is frowned on too. I don’t know who all those people were who did the original frowning, but I wish I could go back in time and burn their eyebrows off. They made a bunch of rules on a whim that the rest of us are saddled with today.

Hannah didn’t want to waste any time. By that, I mean her first priority was to take care of business, so we could go home to my house and ... well ... take care of business, if you get my drift.

She called the realtor on her cell phone, and arranged to meet her at our first destination, which turned out to be a two acre plot of land notched into a wheat field. It had a farmhouse on it, surrounded by a wind break of trees that had been allowed to grow wildly. Some of the trees had died as a result. There were a few pieces of rusty farm machinery lying around in tall grass.

The house was two stories, with a tall attic area that had a dormer in it, which meant it might have been turned into quasi living space at some time in the past. The house didn’t matter, though, because I knew Hannah wanted new construction, and that meant the house would come down.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“It will be dusty during planting season and harvest,” I said. “The road shouldn’t cause too much problem with dust because the prevailing winds will blow it away from the property. The trees will help with the wind, but some of them are in bad shape and need to be replaced.”

“Why would I care about some old trees around the edge of the property?”

“Because the wind blows every day in Oklahoma,” I said. “It’s a constant in every Okie’s life. If you don’t learn to love that, it can drive you crazy.”

“Oh,” she said. “So no matter where I buy, it will be windy?”

“Every day,” I confirmed.

As if to punctuate the conversation, a gust of wind whipped up the hem of her dress, and showed me some thigh. She saw me looking.

“Satyr,” she snorted.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” I said. “Just wait until I get you home. You’ll feel like a nudist by the time you leave.”

“Caitlin told me how she and the girls used to stay naked all day long.”

She had delivered that in an inflection free voice. Nor had there been any visual clues, that I could see, anyway, which gave me any information about how she felt about that. We were going to raise a baby. That was already firm in my brain, by that time. So good communication was going to be critical.

“How’d you feel about that?” I asked.

She raised one eyebrow, which made her look a little imperious.

“I was jealous.”

“Ahhh,” I said. “Not to worry. There won’t be any bevy of naked girls cavorting in your new pool.”

“That’s not true,” she said. “At least, according to Caitlin.”

“Tell me more,” I said. “That must have been an interesting conversation.”

“She says I can have you, but I have to share you ... occasionally.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I am not kidding. My own daughter has turned into a bully ... a hooligan .... a gangster. She threatened to blackmail me!”

“I’ll spank her the next time I see her,” I said, tightly.

“She’d just enjoy it,” said Hannah, carelessly. “I’m not worried about her. It was funny, actually. I made sure not to laugh at her, though. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”

“Why not? She was way out of line.”

“I don’t want her mad at me. I want her terrified of me.”

“Uh oh,” I said. “What did you do?”

“I told her if she gave me any trouble, I’d give the baby up for adoption, and tell the world about you and her, and you and me.”

“Wow,” I said. I knew she’d never do that under any circumstances, and that it was a bluff. “The nuclear option, right out of the box.”

“Like I said, I wanted her terrified.”

“So, did she buy it?”

“She broke down and sobbed. It was so sad. She begged me to forgive her. That poor girl loves you as much as I do.”

“So what happened then?”

“Then we sat down and talked about things. It was kind of liberating, actually. We’d never talked about all of this, not in detail. I knew quite a bit already about you and your ... um ... musketeers ... from back when I first got there, and she was trying to convince me that what she was doing was okay. But since then we had never had an actual discussion about how we felt about you and ... um ... details.”

“Details?”

“Come on. Guys describe what they did with a woman to other guys.”

“Oh,” I said. For some strange reason, the thought of the two of them exchanging war stories of me in bed made blood start gravitating into my penis.

“It was good,” she said. “It cleared the air.”

“So no bevy of naked girls?” I tried to make my voice sound tragic.

“Does two count as a bevy?”

“Which two?” I asked.

“What do you mean which two?” She was outraged.

“Well, it could be Caitlin and Emma, or Caitlin and Ashley, or Ashley and Emma,” I complained. “Not that it matters. I like them all. It would just be nice to know.”

She goggled at me. “You are a fucking satyr!” she yelped. “Caitlin and me, you son of a bitch!”

“Oh,” I said, trying to put on a pedantic air. “Well, I guess that’s acceptable.”

I saw her about to explode and put my index finger against her lips to forestall that.

“Turns out we both bluff pretty well, huh?”

“Asshole,” she grumbled, relaxing.

“I believe the proper form of that address is, ‘Asshole who I am hopelessly in love with,’” I said.

“Asshole,” she said again, but she smiled.

“Seriously,” I said. “You caved?”

“Caved to what?”

“Letting Caitlin ... um ... you know ... with me.”

“Share you? It doesn’t extend quite to that level.”

“What level does it extend to?”

“She’s going to live in the dorm the first year of college. She can come visit as often as she wants, but she’ll have to decide carefully whether she wants to play with you or not.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not going to allow her to use birth control, unless she has a boyfriend.”

“That sounds complicated,” I said. “That really must have been an interesting discussion.”

“It’s not complicated at all,” she said. “That she loves you is fine. Wonderful, in fact. I want her to love you. But she has no future with you in the role of husband, or quasi husband. She needs to find a nice young man to produce grandchildren for me. If she’s actually trying to do that, then birth control is fine, until she finds the right man, and they want to start a family. But I’m not going to let you be her living dildo, which she can have any time she feels like it. If she wants me to give some of you up, then there need to be potential ramifications involved. Ergo, no birth control. Every time she decides to sleep with you, she’ll know that you could be doing to her, what you did to me.”

“She’s eighteen,” I reminded Hannah.

“Of course she is, and she has the right to make up her own mind. But I have the right to control some of what she wants, and she either plays by my rules, or she doesn’t get to play at all. Not with you, anyway.”

“Do you have any idea how unconventional all this is?” I asked, stunned by what she’d just said.

“Of course,” she said. “But we only have two choices, here. One is to never do that with you again, and try to resume a way of life which the world could approve of. The other is to adapt to what has happened, do the best we can to protect our interests, and try to find some happiness in the process.”

“I have to say, that sounds a little mercenary.”

“Why?”

“Protect our own interests?”

“That’s how the world works, Bob,” she said, seriously. “I’m pregnant with your baby. I want to raise that child as my own. You’re new to this children thing, but pretty soon you’re going to find out that you’ll do anything to protect your offspring. Anything!”

“What happens if Caitlin decides to chance things at the wrong time?” I asked.

“Then we’ll have to adapt to that,” she said. “I did.”

“Yes, but your options are a little better than hers would be.”

“That’s true, and that’s one of the things we talked about.”

“I don’t know if this kind of ... arrangement ... is a good idea,” I said.

“Suddenly you’re monogamous?”

“I’ve always been monogamous,” I said.

“Couldn’t tell it from what I walked in on.”

“That was different. That was just three girls exploring their sexuality.”

“And what if those three girls want to explore what it’s like to be pregnant?”

I laughed.

“First off, I seriously doubt that any of them want to have my baby. Second, at least two of them have already forgotten me. I’ve seen Emma a few times since then, and Ashley once, but all of that was just in passing. Neither of them came to my door begging for more. You seem to think I have some special power over women, but that’s not true at all. I hadn’t had sex in over two years before the girls decided to explore. Women don’t flock to me, and I’m a little picky about the women I’d risk having a baby with.”

“You exposed all three of those girls to your sperm,” she said.

“That’s true,” I said. “I lost control. I admit it. But that’s over. There is no group of three girls flaunting it in front of me anymore. There is no bevy of beauties cavorting around my pool. And I hope soon to sell my house and not have a pool at all, because I hope desperately that you’ll let me design a room for me in your new house.”

“What about my pool?” asked Hannah. “What if they want to prance naked around my pool?”

“Are you trying to make this difficult for me?” I moaned.

“Not at all,” she said. “Just as I wanted Caitlin to understand that life can be complicated, I want to make sure you understand that this relationship could get complicated too.”

“It’s not complicated enough?” I groaned.

“I’ve already thought about what to do with you,” she said, ignoring my question. “You will not have your own room. We will have our bedroom. But there will be guest rooms, though, and it’s conceivable you might sleep in one of them ... occasionally.”

“I do not believe this,” I sighed.

“Well, you’d better get used to the idea,” she said.

She looked up at the car speeding down the road towards us, kicking up a rooster tail of dust.

“You caused it.”

Penny Mac-something or other was Hannah’s realtor. I didn’t know a lot of realtors. In fact, I only knew one. But I’d seen the caricatures of them on TV, and Penny could have played any of those roles to perfection. She was bouncy, and positive, and vivacious, and had an armful of clipboard with dozens of pieces of paper on it that pertained to all the properties she was going to try to sell to Hannah.

Hannah introduced me as “My friend, Bob,” which got a calculating glance at me. I never saw her look at Hannah’s bulge, but I know she was aware of it, because she adapted her sales pitch to include “your new baby.”

It was a long afternoon. We visited four sites, varying between the farmhouse I already told you about, which was on one point seven acres of land, to a twenty-five acre plot of rolling hills that had washouts and ravines on it that exposed the stark red subsoil that Oklahoma is known for.

We made arrangements to meet her to see two more places the next day.

“Where are you staying?” she asked, all bubbly and helpful. “I can get you a discount at the Ramada.”

“Bob has a house in Chickasha, with a very nice guest room for me,” said Hannah.

“Oh! He really is just a friend. I’m sorry. I thought ...” She didn’t say it, but her meaning was obvious.

“He’s my architect,” said Hannah. “I’ve known him for years.”

“Oh. How nice. Well, splendid, then. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

We followed Penny back to Interstate 40, and stayed behind her as she headed toward Oklahoma City. She had a lead foot, though, and was out of sight before we got to 240 and I turned onto it to get to I-44.

We were home forty minutes later, which probably seems like a long time for a man who is in heat, but I plied her with questions about the intimacies she and Caitlin had shared. It was fascinating, because it turned out that some of those intimacies were about Hannah and Chad, and the things Hannah had learned in her marriage. Those parts she just referred to in that manner, saying that the details were private. l didn’t argue, or point out that they weren’t private when it came to Caitlin. I wasn’t going to pry. I felt incredibly lucky, and I wanted to do only things that would help the relationship flourish.

When we got home, Hannah wanted to take a shower. This time, when I stepped in with her, she didn’t resist in any way at all. I have no idea how long we stood there, with me behind her, my boner trapped between her thighs, while my soapy hands moved from her breasts to her bulging abdomen. She just lay her head back on my shoulder and purred.

Like many men who are “virgins” when it comes to pregnant women, I assumed making love would involve all sorts of precautions. When she lay back on the bed and spread her legs, exposing her protruding pudendum to me, I assumed she wanted oral love.

So I gave her some. I was surprised when she tasted different than Caitlin, but I didn’t tell her that. She was different from Kat in other ways too, in this scenario. Caitlin grabbed my hair and pulled hard, trying to get as much pressure on her clit as possible from my face, lips, teeth, whatever. But Hannah just toyed with my hair, letting her fingertips slip through it while she sighed and expressed in little snippets of sentences how happy she was that I was doing that I was doing.

It was fun, because I had time to pull her pussy lips apart with my fingers and expose her clit. Then I was able to circle it with the tip of my tongue, and lap at it like a dog, and suck it between my lips. Her hips bumped, and her belly rippled, and I got one of those comments that let me know she was happy.

Then, suddenly her fingers tugged at my hair.

“I want you in me, now,” she sighed.

She pulled as I crawled up, unsure of how to do what she wanted.

“I don’t want to crush the baby,” I whispered.

“The baby is the size of a lemon right now. You won’t hurt her by lying on top of me.”

“All that bulge, and she’s just a lemon?”

“Shut up, Bob. I don’t want to talk about the baby. I want to recreate making her.”

So I slid in and, other than there being some pressure against my abdomen, it was just like making love before.

An hour later, I was on my back and Hannah was riding me, rocking back and forth.

“You want to know something?” she asked, panting slightly.

“Sure,” I said.

“I never did it this way before you.”

“Really?”

“Chad was a big believer in the missionary position,” she said.

“Oh,” I said.

“Caitlin said I had to try it.”

“Good grief,” I sighed.

“She was right, too.”

At that point she bent forward just a little more and started thrashing her hips, chasing an orgasm. When it arrived I pinched her nipples and found something else that she and Caitlin had in cmmon. I could feel the pulsations of her pussy go crazy as I squeezed and tugged the nipples that would, in just a few short months, spurt milk for our baby to grow on.

She was all business when we met Penny the next morning. She didn’t talk to me at all, unless she had a question about how something might affect the building of the house. Penny had been solicitous towards me the day before, trying to sell me the property too, but today she ignored me as well.

In the end, Hannah decided on a seven point two acre piece of land on the corner of a section. It, too, had been a farmstead at one time, but the house itself had fallen in. It had several outbuildings that were still in good shape, and a creek running through the property about half a mile from the house site. Trees had volunteered, and blanketed the property. Many would probably need to be removed, to encourage the growth and health of others, but there was good potential there for having a cool, shady place to walk, where the wind would only frisk between the trees, and rush overhead.

It was on a corner, which increased the dust issue, but I suggested that the house could be built anywhere, and not close to the road, as the fallen down one had been.

That decision having been made, we returned to Penny’s office to start the paperwork. It turned out Hannah did not need a loan. She’d put Chad’s life insurance into high yield bonds, which had done very well indeed. Then, sensing some danger, she’d taken the money out of the risky arena, and put it into oil and gas investments. She happened to choose a broker who was excited about oil development in North Dakota.

So she had the cash to buy the property and build the house, assuming we didn’t go hog wild on the house.

Of course I had some money too.

So we ended up going hog wild on the house.

I knew people locally, who were in the building trade, and who wanted me, a successful architect, to refer customers to them. Consequently, I was able to get all but some of the interior finish done by the time Hannah arrived with Timothy Raymond Simmons, our healthy, bouncing son.

I guess I glossed over that part. It occurs to me you might be interested in how he came to be a Simmons, instead of being an Anderson.

And if you’re not interested, then skip ahead a few paragraphs.

I worked on getting the house built, while Hannah stayed in California and worked on building a baby, who turned out to be a boy, instead of the girl Hannah was convinced was so active in her belly. She’d had ultrasounds, but had told the doctor she only wanted information that required some treatment plan. About week thirty-nine, I left the new house in the tender care of Rick Salisbury, our general contractor, and flew out to Santa Barbara to be there for the birth.